1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a firmware updating system for updating a firmware of a printer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, along with digitization of TV broadcasts, various services became available to the users who watch TV. Among these services, for example, in case of home shopping, e-mail delivery or timetable guide where there is a necessity to reconfirm the services and the information they received, there are many cases where it is convenient for the users to keep at hand a list of names of the products or the e-mails they received, after checking beforehand the details of desired information on the TV screen. Therefore, a system to receive information from a receiving apparatus such as a Set Top Box (STB) and a Digital TV (DTV) so as to print the received information with the printer which is directly connected to the receiving apparatus is useful. Under this system, the STB or the DTV is connected to the printer via an I/F such as an IEEE1394 bus or the like. The following is an explanation of a case where a receiving apparatus is an STB, but the same applies to the case of using a DTV.
The broadcast content delivered through the TV broadcast as mentioned above is described with Broadcast Markup Language (BML) so as to start the broadcasting. It is, however, possible to use other markup language, for instance, Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). Each file in the broadcast content described with these languages is objectified by a Document Object Model (DOM), a general-purpose Application Programming Interface (API), in the STB, and is transferred to an application. Consequently, the content on the website can be distributed through the TV broadcast without needing any special processing. It is therefore natural to use the markup language, as in these cases, in order to have the printer print when content for printing which is necessary for the printer to print is described in such broadcast content.
In the aforementioned system, it is necessary for a receiving apparatus or a printing apparatus to analyze the print content described in the markup languages and perform rasterizing to it so as to create picture data. There exists a system consisting of a personal computer and an ink jet printer connected to it as an example of such a system in which a host apparatus creates picture data.
Here, it is undesirable to have the receiving apparatus perform the aforementioned picture data generating processing as it causes a decline in performance of original functions of the receiving apparatus such as a display of broadcast data while printing processing is under way. Also, not all the receiving apparatuses are connected to the printing apparatus, which necessitates installing of a picture data generating processing module to the receiving apparatus that is not connected to the printing apparatus, which is a disadvantage in terms of cost.
Provided that a system in which a printing apparatus performs the picture data generating processing is introduced, the above problem can be solved.
Meanwhile, these markup languages, however, have been developed rapidly and there is a high possibility that the version-upgrades take place in the future. In this case, there comes in a necessity to update functions and processing procedures of a printing apparatus according to the extended functions of the markup languages. Also, it will be necessary to update a firmware of a printer along with the extended functions of printers.
However, an STB is by nature an apparatus to display the received broadcasting content on a TV monitor, therefore, it does not include a mechanism to update firmware of various peripheral apparatuses such as a printer. There arises a problem of needing a significant system change in the STB in order to implement the system to update firmware of various peripheral apparatuses.
The present invention has been devised in view of these circumstances and it is an object of the present invention to provide a firmware updating system, which realizes an updating of a firmware of a printer without adding any special components in the STB, together with a receiving apparatus and a printing apparatus.